


it's ancient history (that's bleeding out of me)

by friendly_ficus



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Family Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Loss, not solving problems so much as figuring out how to face them, one very long night in an orb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: Adaine recasts. "Are you there?""Adaine?""Yes it's me," she sends back, curling around Boggy momentarily like he can somehow diminish the tears stinging at her eyes. "I've come to rescue you."Adaine is the oracle, for whatever it's worth. Maybe this can be prophecy.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Aelwen Abernant
Comments: 11
Kudos: 115





	it's ancient history (that's bleeding out of me)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is legit kinda a bummer i just want you to know that going in mind the tags etc, spoilers through fh:live episode 9

"You’re not my father," Adaine says, meaning  _ I am my own person and you will suffer me. _ The manicured courtyard is full of mages and they all look at Anguin for answers. She will not be the one to provide them.

He talks at her. It’s nothing new.

“There is no level of an annoyance to you that will be satisfying to the ghost of me.”  _ I hate you. I hate you I hate you I  _ hate  _ you. _ It is the cruelest thing she can think of to promise him, that she will spend eternity at his shoulder as evidence of his great failure: to have such a disappointment of a daughter be the oracle and not even be able to turn the fact to his advantage.  _ I will destroy you. Even in death I will destroy you. Even the spectre of me will seek your ruin. _

It is so much  _ work,  _ to hate so hard, to commit to something like forever. Surely he doesn’t believe her capable it, doesn’t think she has the resolve to carry out her threats.

Adaine is not afraid of hard work.

\---

“Hey, are you still there?” At this point she could cast the cantrip paralyzed, she knows the shape of it so well.

In her arms, Boggy lets out seven croaks. She isn’t sure if a frog can accurately keep time but she’s not familiar enough with the stars here to check him against them.

“Adaine?” her sister’s voice whispers in her ear. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s okay, I—wait, what?”

“What?”

“Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“What I did to be here, I don’t remember all of it but... It was bigger than anything you’ve done. You shouldn’t be here.” 

Adaine feels a brief flash of old anger, the kind that sat with her at the breakfast table every day for years, that condescended to pat her head, that rolled around in her gut and grew like thistles or brambles or some other sharp plant. She opens her mouth to respond to the insult;  _ I can do so much more than you ever could,  _ she nearly says,  _ I’m so much more important than you ever knew. You failed and the old oracle died but I’m here, I’m alive, I’m going to be worse than you ever managed— _

“I should apologize,” Aelwen whispers, the ragged edge of her voice cutting through the roar in Adaine’s ears. She closes her mouth. This is the twenty-fifth time her sister’s said something along these lines.

“No,” Adaine says, “I mean yes, you should, but not right now. Listen, I’ve got four first-level spells left and I don’t have my spellbook. Where do you think they’ve taken it?”

\---

Boggy croaks nine times. Aelwen asks where she is. Adaine shivers, slides again down the curve of the sphere on the trail of frost she continues to summon.

“I’m in the cell next to you,” she says, “we’re in this fucking tower in Fallinel, I think.” 

“What did I do, Adaine? I know it was wrong, I know I behaved poorly and caused a great deal of trouble, I know I gave father a headache, he told me so, I should apologize—”

“He put you here,” Adaine snaps, “he put us both here, he’s a bad person.”

“I... I don’t know...”

“It’s alright.”

Adaine wants him to suffer. It's not enough for him to be gone, out of her life; she thought it was but clearly  _ that’s  _ no longer a working strategy. There has to be some measure of justice, some revenge she can take on him. She imagines Gorgug's axe or Fabian's sword or Riz's gun in her hand, Anguin on his knees. She imagines Alewen being the one to do it, to dig a knife into his throat and bleed him in front of all of his immortal compatriots. She imagines violence and death and violent death, or  _ him  _ shut up in one of these spinning things, and when Aelwen asks her how many spells she has left she says four first level slots. 

You don’t need magic to hurt someone, you can use anything; Adaine knows that even a ladle will do.

“They probably have your spellbook in the vault, with whatever other magical items you were carrying.” It’s as clear as Aelwen ever sounds, when they go over these facts. It’s evidence of something, Adaine thinks, some escape plan she never brought to fruition. 

It would be so much easier to leave her sister to silence, to try and plan with Boggy and not listen to the exhaustion that carries through even the whispers the cantrip allows. Adaine does not do this. 

_ Unaccountably cruel,  _ she thinks,  _ what they’ve done to you is monstrous. Now that I know about it, I won’t let it continue.  _ If she can’t get them both out right now, at least she won’t make Aelwen be alone.

(Adaine does not forgive her sister. Adaine does not want to forgive her sister, she does not even want to want to forgive her sister. But this is  _ wrong.) _

She recasts the message and finds herself saying, “Fabian killed his father.”

“Seacaster?” Aelwen doesn’t laugh, doesn’t have the breath for it, but something about her tone conveys a little bit of disbelief. “He killed... Bill Seacaster? Bill Seacaster is dead?”

“Yeah,” Adaine’s not sure what she’s trying to say with this; it’s not  _ Fabian is cool  _ but it might be  _ my friends are strong. _ It might be  _ fathers can be killed. _ “Him and Kalvaxus both.”

“I should, I should apologize.”

“Later,” Adaine slides again down the side of the sphere, “you can apologize later.”

\---

"Didn't they do their best with us?"

"No."

"Didn't... didn't they push us to succeed?"

"No. Listen," and this is the hardest iteration of the conversation so far. She's started figuring out how to shift Aelwen from this track but it hasn't consistently worked. 

Boggy croaks softly, twice. Outside, the stars have shifted. Time is moving. Adaine doesn’t have an actionable plan yet.

"Listen," Adaine repeats, recasting the cantrip. "They treated us badly and—" The words get stuck in her throat.

"And what?" Aelwen sounds as clear as she does when asking how many spell slots are left.

"And we deserve to get better."

"Oh," her sister breathes. The cantrip runs out.

Adaine recasts. "Are you there?"

"Adaine?" 

"Yes it's me," she sends back, curling around Boggy momentarily like he can somehow diminish the tears stinging at her eyes. "I've come to rescue you."

Adaine is the oracle, for whatever it's worth. Maybe this can be prophecy.

\---

"You are not my father," Adaine says, meaning  _ I am my own person and I owe you nothing. _ The orb rotates slowly; in her head, Aelwen murmurs her seventy-first apology. Every breath she takes is a rebellion, is a defiance, is a result of Jawbone having her repeat over and over until she could say it on her own and mean it:  _ what they did to me was wrong and I deserve to be safe, I deserve to get care, I deserve to feel better. _

Alarms begin to sound, the script on the walls lighting up and reacting to something new. The sun has risen. Boggy settles again in her arms, not-happy-about-this look still on his little frog face. On some unseen axis, everything shifts.

**Author's Note:**

> hey this situation?? very good it doesn't seem. i'm sad about Adaine and Aelwen... (fuck Anguin tho. Anguin die challenge.) sometimes you write something to get it out of you at around 2am when you’ve just caught up with fh:live. Title from Ancient History by The Crane Wives.  
> leave a comment and let me know what you think! can't wait to see the narrative tapestry they weave for us in a few days when the show comes back :)


End file.
